Skills- Im guessing it might have been a freak temp thing- it was a little windy, so that may have been it. I keep pretty close watch on the temp before painting.

X- I do wipe down between coats, I like to take just a little rubbing alcohol on a rag and go over what I'm about to paint just to make sure there's no dust or moisture/etc. left behind. Ive sandwiched dust before by not doing it!!

Dr.T- I've nver thought of that, I might have to do that for the frame. I'd bet that might really make a difference!

Ax- Yup, 2 coats of primer before the colour coat. I ran into that problem with paintign chrome during last year's buildoff. Chrome is tricky to paint (IMHO) and get a good 'adhesion', so I try to avoid it. But I didn't really have a good alternative here for the wheels, and there's no one around doing powdercoat/I dont think I could afford it.

Well after some frusteration with the front wheel, I finished the painting, and now that it's dry I slapped on the tire and tube. Just for fun I dropped it into my fork set up. What do you think? Startin to look like a Merkel :roll: :wink:

I also media blasted the spring carriage this weekend, and mounted it to the seat pan. I drilled two new holes in the seat pan to allow the front coil 'runners' to be attached in a more natural place. Since the assembly was origonally from a ladie's seat, it needed a tiny stretch out.

I think I'll just clearcoat everything , painting it seems redundant. What do you think?

Next up will be the rear wheel, and then the frame. I'll then need to paint up the tank and get my decal plates attached. I'll have to getthe rest of the bicycle put back together first before mounting it as cables and the shifter run inside of it. Plus I was messing around with my control options, and I have a trick up my sleeve :wink: :wink:

I'm also going to start looking at covering the seat pan with a piece of leather. Maybe some padding? Anyone out there with a longspring seat have any ideas on this? I'm thinking that the springs will absorb most of the shock so padding won't be too necessary, but at the same time a little extra cushion for the ol' kiester never hurt...

That fork looks great with the truss rods. Nice lines together. Digging the seat, gonna totally steal the 'long springs on a different saddle" idea someday (springs are on their way :mrgreen: ) As far as the seat goes, clear coat it, you can always paint it later if you change your mind, right?

I'm going to guess that your paint problem stems from the Clear having a "hotter" solvent than the paint under it. Usually, this kind of thing happens when shooting a lacquer over an enamel, or a straight enamel over an acrylic enamel. You can reduce the chances of these types of reactions by using a two-part (expensive-ish) urethane clear that mixes in the can just before use. A catalyzed paint like this doesn't rely solely on the evaporation of a solvent to harden - it does so mostly through a chemical reaction between the two chemicals in different parts of the paint. This means that you don't have the problem of a hotter solvent re-softening the paint underneath.

Sometimes, you can "cheat" by misting on light coats of the top coat until you get full coverage. The solvent is more likely to evaporate before it causes any bad reactions with the paint beneath. Once you feel you have full coverage, and that has been allowed to cure out for a week or two, you can shoot a wet coat to get the glossy finish, or you can continue to mist coats on, polishing/color sanding to get the gloss.

Gowjobs, I bet you're right about the solvent 'hottness', I had never even considered that. It was indeed an enamel over an acrylic enamel. I'm goign to forgo clear coating all together on this one- the reason I wanted to in the first place was all for protection, but in my expierence if a frame with 3-5 coats of clear protection on it wants to chip, it's going to chip no matter how it's been coated from the rattle can. Plus, this stuff dries pretty hard to begin with, and I like the finish- I didn't want it blindingly glossy anyway.

It seems like lady's long spring saddles show up for sale more than mens, at least in what I've noticed, and from my expierence here (and just looking at different saddle construction) it's not a terrible amount of work to mount the springs from a lady's seat to the pan of a men's. A lot of the old saddles and carriages seem to be similar in construction, and if you're a little handy and darring it's be a neat project

Skipton- I'll have to schlepp it down to a Chicago ride sometime :mrgreen:

Found objects- That looks like a really cool product! Have you posted this info in the 'bike talk' or 'bike how to' boards? I bet a lot of guys on here would be interested in that!

Gdcast- Thanks man! I was hoping to do some more painting on my rear rim, but it's a lovely rain and snow mix here I'm betting the headbadge will look a million times better on your Phillips than it would look on this one painted orange! :wink:

I've also got to give a shout out to member Boardtrack Fan. He put together a beautiful Flying Merkel tribute waaay before I joined this site, and to be honest, it was not only the bike that got me interested in the Flying Merkel to begin with (I saw it, and it was like a little voice in my head started screaming 'you need to build one of those, Spence!'), but also was the gateway to alerting me about this site in the first place. So don't go thinking I'm the first one to think of this! :wink: I honestly didn't even know that the Flying Merkel was a produced bike back in the day, I though he had come up with the title himself